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For Michelle*, the trouble began with a load of laundry.
Key points:
- A group of homes built as part of a government-backed affordable housing scheme ended up being riddled with problems
- Some of the houses were demolished and rebuilt under a government insurance scheme
- However, residents in five remaining homes are yet to be compensated
The single mother had only recently moved into a property — an elevated, tropical house in Darwin's satellite city of Palmerston — she had bought for about $400,000.
She said that when the washing machine entered its spin cycle, the entire home began to shudder.
"It was like an earthquake," she said.
In the same neighbourhood, Ben* had begun to notice problems of his own.
His house was built by the same builder and developer as Michelle's and employed the same distinct design: a three-bedroom, steel-framed house perched on steel beams.
"Sitting down, watching TV, you could feel a little four-and-a-half kilo dog running up and down the stairs," he said.
"You thought somebody was intruding the house, but it was just the dog."
It was early 2014, and both homeowners had just bought into an NT government-backed affordable housing scheme that provided 18 almost identical homes in the fast-growing suburb of Bellamack.
But instead of providing safety and shelter, the houses went on to star in a notorious saga that has become a headache for the government and a nightmare for residents for almost a decade since.
Issues experienced by the residents in the homes — including cracked and lifting tiles, extensive corrosion and water ingress when it rains — deteriorated to the point that the government bulldozed and replaced some of the dwellings in 2021.
Expert advice recommended more than a year ago that the remaining homes should also be demolished after warning they could collapse in extreme weather.
However, residents such as Ben and Michelle continue to occupy those homes, and even one of the Northern Territory government's own building authorities has questioned how that has been allowed to continue.
"It seems concerning how that could continue to be the case when one is faced with the contents of the expert reports," the Commissioner of Residential Building Disputes wrote, in documents obtained by the ABC.
Owing to a complex web of home warranty guidelines, residents in those remaining homes are yet to see any compensation at all.
Ben and Michelle have spoken out to shed light on what they see as significant failures in protections afforded to homebuyers under the Northern Territory's residential building insurance schemes.
The ABC agreed to conceal their identities because their matters will likely return to a tribunal in the coming months.
A complex web of rules
When the ABC visited Michelle's home in December, a thin crack ran along several rooms near the junction of a wall and the ceiling.
In one corner of the master bedroom, the fissure had grown enough to let sunlight pour in on some afternoons.
Michelle said water regularly enters other parts of the home when it rains.
Residents' complaints about these issues are well known to the Northern Territory government which, in 2021, said delays fixing defects were because the developer, Bellamack Pty Ltd, and builder, George Milatos, had failed to come to an agreement.
Both parties have previously denied responsibility for the issues.
In 2021, the residents' concerns turned into alarm when they were provided with copies of an engineering report on their homes.
Based on site inspections of the five homes — and concluding they were likely "similarly structurally non-compliant" as others that were assessed in detail — the report warned the houses presented a risk of serious harm to occupants and their neighbours because of potential structural failure in a thunderstorm downburst, cyclone or tornado.
"The only feasible risk-management strategy, if it is desired to achieve such, is to mitigate the risk by moving occupants out of the houses with the threat of a cyclone and planning to eliminate the risk by demolishing the houses without undue delay," the report's authors said.
"It was quite a shock," Ben said of the report's findings.
"We always knew there [were] problems, but we were sort of led to believe we would be able to repair them."
However, finding the money to demolish and rebuild the homes in line with report's recommendation has not been straightforward.
In correspondence seen by the ABC, Ben and Michelle both learned one avenue called the Fidelity Fund — which can provide cover for structural defects up to six years after houses are completed if certain triggers are met — had expired by the time they began to make enquiries.
Meanwhile, up to 10 homes built under the same scheme were being demolished and rebuilt or their owners bought out.
Those homes were covered by a scheme called the Home Building Certification Fund, which expired in 2012, the year before Ben and Michelle's homes were finished.
And last year, the ABC revealed that three of the eight remaining homes had been or were being sold on the private market, extinguishing some forms of recourse for new owners.
For the remaining five homeowners, including Ben and Michelle, that left the Residential Building Cover Scheme, a type of cover administered by Northern Territory's Consumer Affairs.
Under the scheme, homeowners can apply to a bureaucrat called the Commissioner of Residential Building Disputes for a decision about whether certain consumer guarantees for residential building work were breached.
However, payouts of more than $100,000 also need to be referred to back to an independent tribunal called the Northern Territory Civil and Administrative Affairs Tribunal (NTCAT).
Ben and Michelle are concerned the process will drag on far longer than they anticipated when they lodged their applications in 2019, especially in the face of expert evidence saying their homes would become more dilapidated as corrosion progressed.
"I'm sort of of the belief now that, at the end of this, we're going to have nothing," Ben said.
"We'll just be left with the problem and it will be too bad, so sad."
'A nightmare of extreme proportions,' builder says
It was a Monday morning in early November when the group of homeowners filed into the hearing room of NTCAT's headquarters in Darwin's northern suburbs.
Along with Mr Milatos, they had been brought there because of a contested ruling by the commissioner that consumer guarantees had been breached.
In one determination, that runs for nearly 100 pages — and seen by the ABC — that bureaucrat said the engineering report "establishes multiple contraventions of consumer guarantees, which will have serious implications for the structural integrity of the house the subject of this application".
According to the ruling, Mr Milatos had argued he was not responsible for the issues, claiming he was working to permits and approved drawings, that the issues related to the design and not the construction of the homes and that the work was certified.
The commissioner rejected many of these positions — noting some, such as the occupancy certificates, raised "important issues" for the government about how "such a series of events was able to take place" — and accepted the recommendation to demolish without delay.
However, Mr Milatos then challenged some of those rulings through the tribunal, adding another step in legal proceedings for three of the homeowners.
A further two challenges were rejected because they were filed late.
Ben's fears — that he may not be compensated — are further fuelled by the next steps for accessing compensation under this scheme.
Any payout order would be recoverable as a debt against the builder, and Mr Milatos himself told the hearing he was broke.
"Recently, I read a statement that I'm flat broke and on the pension," Mr Milatos told the November hearing.
"What are you people actually hoping to get out of it?"
"A house that's going to last the life of a loan," one resident replied.
Another homeowner told the hearing that her home insurance had been cancelled until the issues were rectified.
Asked about what would happen if respondents were unable to meet compensation orders, Consumer Affairs Commissioner Sandra Otto said homeowners could apply to a court to register and enforce any compensation order that may eventually be issued.
Failure to pay, she added, is an offence and could also lead to disciplinary action before an industry watchdog called the Building Practitioners Board.
However, as Mr Milatos's building registration lapsed in January 2021, certain limitations apply to any action the board could take.
In a statement to the ABC, Mr Milatos himself called the saga "a nightmare of extreme proportions" and said he was pushing for an inquiry into the events.
'We can't stay in the house'
Sitting beneath the covered area of one of their homes one afternoon, Michelle and Ben said they continued to hold grave concerns for their safety as their bid for compensation carried on through another cyclone season.
"Every storm we have, I can't sleep, because I don't know if the wind will blow the roof or the water will come in," Michelle said.
"It's really obvious – the cracks all over the house."
Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler did not directly respond to detailed questions about whether she found the timeline for compensating the remaining homeowners acceptable, or the different protections offered by the two insurance schemes fair.
Instead, she pointed to recent building sector reforms increasing penalties for misconduct and expanding the powers of the Building Practitioners Board.
Ben and Michelle continue to await compensation determinations from the commissioner, which they suspect will exceed $100,000 and be referred back to NTCAT.
Under the Bellamack home, a strong wind blew as the sun continued to set, and pastel hues shone through the thick banks of cloud — signs of a possible wet season storm.
Asked where he would go in the event of a cyclone, Ben said: "I'm not even sure."
"I don't really have a plan for that, but I just know we can't stay in the house."
* Names have been changed.